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Government insists diplomacy will be quiet
on Zimbabwe

International Herald Tribune

The Associated PressPublished: April 19,
2007

CAPE TOWN, South Africa: The South African government
said Thursday it would provide no public blow-by-blow of its Zimbabwe
mediation efforts.

Spokesman Thembo Maseka said it was vital to get
Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe's government and opposition leaders
talking and it would be counterproductive to publicize details of the
effort.

Southern African leaders last month named President Thabo Mbeki
as mediator in the Zimbabwean crisis - even though Western governments and
domestic critics, including his own brother, have criticized him for not
being tough enough with Mugabe.

When asked what advice he would give
his older brother in handling the Zimbabwe issue, Moeletsi Mbeki said: "I
think the South African government needs to show a lot more energy in
dissuading Zimbabwe's ruling party Zanu PF from brutalizing the opposition
party."

"We need to send a message across to the Zanu PF that an
opposition in a democratic country has a right to exist and has the right to
participate in activities," the political analyst said at a lecture in
Pretoria, according to the South African Press Association.

Mugabe's
brutal clampdown on opposition leaders earlier this month earned
international condemnation. Following that storm, the Southern African
Development Community named Mbeki as mediator. Mbeki has long advocated a
quiet diplomatic approach, saying public pressure on Mugabe was
counterproductive.The opposition Movement for Democratic Change has said
it welcomes South African mediation efforts. South African spokesman Maseka
wouldn't say whether Mugabe had agreed to cooperate.

"The critical
and urgent challenge facing all Zimbabweans is to take the necessary steps
to create an environment that would be conducive for free and fair elections
in 2008," Maseka told journalists after a regular Cabinet meeting.

He
said Mbeki wanted to deal with the Zimbabwe crisis "behind closed doors and
confidentially."

Mugabe smashed dreams of Zimbabwe, all Africans

POSTED: 12:40 p.m. EDT, April
19, 2007

By Jeff KoinangeCNN

Editor's note: In our
Behind the Scenes series, CNN correspondents share their experiences in
covering news and analyze the stories behind the events. This week marked
Robert Mugabe's 27th year in power in Zimbabwe. Here, CNN Africa
correspondent Jeff Koinange shares his perspective on Mugabe's
reign.

DAR ES SALAAM, Tanzania (CNN) -- I was 14 years old in 1980 and
vividly recall that historic day on April 18 when the southern African
nation of Rhodesia became independent Zimbabwe.

I remember the
British flag being lowered and the Zimbabwean one being raised. To me, it
seemed there wasn't a dry eye in the crowd at Rufaru Stadium in the
country's newly named capital, Harare, previously known as
Salisbury.

Rhodesia was named after the British
financier-turned-philanthropist, Cecil Rhodes, and was a bastion of white
settler rule with commercial farms, producing everything from tobacco to
maize. Africa's latest independent republic rightfully boasted the title:
southern Africa's bread basket.

Among the guests at the stadium that
night was reggae superstar, Bob Marley and the Wailers. Zimbabweans went
wild as Marley took to the stage, belting out his song
"Zimbabwe."

Watching these events unfolding on my black and white TV in
not-too-distant Kenya, I thought what a great feat this nation had just
accomplished.

Also impressive for me that night was the man speaking at
the podium, the bespectacled, articulate, smartly dressed and newly elected
prime minister of independent Zimbabwe: Robert Gabriel Mugabe.

His
speech was like nothing I'd ever heard. His diction, impeccable -- his
command of the English language, inspirational.

Mugabe was the toast
of his nation that night, and the envy of millions across Africa. In the
minds of most, he could do no wrong having inherited a stable economy, a
solid infrastructure and an agriculturally rich nation.

How wrong they
turned out to be.

Mugabe cuts off 'nose to spite face'Less than three
decades later, Mugabe continues in power at the age of 83 years old despite
squandering the post-independence inheritance.

In 2000, he ordered the
invasion of commercially owned white farms -- what critics say was a huge
mistake. Those farmers who didn't get killed or injured fled the country in
droves.

The world cried foul -- in particular, Zimbabwe's former colonial
power, Britain. The United States chipped in as well, and imposed sanctions
on the government.

Mugabe's answer was to tighten his grip on
power.

I was in Zimbabwe for those first farm invasions in April 2000.
What I saw was a country in a state of self-strangulation. One of the white
farmers being forced off his farm told me: "Mugabe's about to cut off his
nose to spite his face."

At least 12 white farmers were killed in the
next few months. Months later, the confiscated farms ended up in the hands
of Mugabe's close allies. Few of them had experience farming and the land
quickly deteriorated to the point of lying barren.

Mugabe also
clamped down on just about everything and everyone he felt was a threat,
from lawyers to doctors to teachers and nurses. He even went after the
churches.

I continued to cover Zimbabwe's downward spiral, from the
presidential elections in 2002 that saw Mugabe defeat his opponent, Morgan
Tsvangirai. It was an election that was seen by international monitors as
largely flawed.

I returned again for the 2005 parliamentary elections in
which the opposition lost badly, leading to deep divisions. Mugabe laughed
off the win saying, "No one can beat me, not now, not ever."

Some of
our reports infuriated him and it was just a matter of time when Mugabe
would turn on us. In 2003, he expelled most Western broadcasters from
reporting within Zimbabwe.

"We consider the CNN and the BBC as enemy
agents," was what Zimbabwe's ambassador to the United States, Machivenyika
Mapuranga, said as he was being interviewed live on CNN
recently.

'Millionaires go to bed hungry'Zimbabweans have been
fleeing their country across the border into South Africa in large
numbers.

The United Nations estimates there are now more than three
million Zimbabwe exiles in South Africa alone. That's about one-fourth of
Zimbabwe's population. Many more have fled to Europe, Australia, the United
States and Canada.

What Zimbabweans are leaving behind is a country
spiraling out of control. Inflation is the highest in the world -- at more
than 1,700 percent. The country's currency -- the Zimbabwe dollar -- is
being printed so fast that Morgan Tsvangirai, the country's opposition
leader, declared, "Zimbabwe is the only nation in the world where
millionaires go to bed hungry."

Eight out of 10 Zimbabweans are out of
work, according to the CIA fact book, which profiles the countries of the
world. Many can't afford to send their children to school and life
expectancy due to the onslaught of HIV-AIDS, as well as the current economic
woes, is among the lowest in the world. (Read about Zimbabweans so desperate
for food they eat rats)

Add to all this what happened just weeks ago: the
battered, bruised and bloodied images of opposition members who'd been
savagely attacked while in police custody.

Mugabe had managed with
this single incident to turn his splintering opposition into global heroes.
Whatever Mugabe's intentions had been, these pictures, Africa watchers say,
had shown a gross miscalculation on his part and a possible sign he may be
starting to lose his grip.

Mugabe has not backed down, saying police have
the "right to bash" protesters.

Is this the 'end game'?Some in
Zimbabwe see these latest events as the beginning of the end for the
long-time leader.

"I hope these are pangs of birth for a new Zimbabwe
and that this dictator must be brought down, brought down by peoples'
power," said Pius Ncube, one of Mugabe's most outspoken critics, who is the
Archbishop of the southern Zimbabwe city of Bulawayo.

However, not
every one believes this will happen.

Sekai Holland, a 64-year-old mother
of two children and grandmother of 10, was among the opposition leaders who
were badly beaten.

"I really think that for people to assume that this is
the end game is quite silly -- unless efforts are done to ensure that Mugabe
understands and accepts that," she said.

Any efforts to that end
would have to come from other presidents in Africa, she said. "Unless that
can be done, there is really no end game here. He will continue to abuse
until I don't know, Zimbabwe is sitting down because right now we are on our
knees."

Africa analysts say the future of Zimbabwe -- with or without
Mugabe -- is crucial due to the possible spillover effect across
Africa.

"Zimbabwe is on the skids," said political analyst Moeletsi
Mbeki. "The only positive thing is that there is a bottom to the
skids."

That bottom could be what some experts fear most -- that
Zimbabwe, which literally means "House of Stone," could come crumbling down
to its foundations.

Portugal facing stiff resistance over plans to invite Mugabe

Most European Union countries will likely
boycott a summit with African leaders set for Portugal in December if Robert
Mugabe is allowed to travel there, Newsreel learned on
Thursday.

Reports this week suggested Mugabe was likely to be allowed to
travel to Portugal for a second summit between EU and African leaders. The
summit has been postponed the last four years because of a disagreement
between the two continents over whether Mugabe may attend.

Portuguese
Foreign Minister Luis Amado said that the EU was now determined the summit
would be held in Lisbon in December, with African leaders united that Mugabe
should also attend.

But the MDC's chief representative in the UK Hebson
Makuvise said Portugal is in danger of failing to get the necessary support
from other EU nations for Mugabe to attend. Makuvise has already embarked on
a diplomatic offensive among EU embassies in London on an anti-Mugabe
campaign and has been told by diplomats that Portugal's invitation to the
dictator would weaken the diplomatic isolation of his regime that most
European Union states are trying to maintain.

'Portugal's position
now is that African leaders are united that Mugabe must attend but it's
exactly the opposite with the European Union. African leaders took a similar
stance earlier this year and even threatened to boycott the summit in
France. But in the end they all turned up while France was forced not to
extend an invitation to Mugabe,' Makuvise said.

He added that EU states
are united in their efforts to see to it that they will not attend if Mugabe
makes it to Portugal. And the Portuguese cannot affordto lose the
support of its counterparts.

'It's a tricky situation for Portugal but
the main thing is they cannot afford to undermine efforts by other EU states
to keep Mugabe under pressure for human rights abuses. Only yesterday
(Wednesday) the EU stepped up pressure on Mugabe by adding five names of his
deputy ministers to a list of top officials banned from the bloc and
expressing strong concerns about human rights abuses,' he added.

The
MDC chief in the UK said a statement by ambassadors of the EU member states
in Brussels also expressed strong concern at the rapidly deteriorating human
rights, political and economic situation in Zimbabwe.

'So can you tell me
if these same people can turn around in December and sit in the same
conference room with Mugabe in Portugal. What would have changed between now
and December when everyone knows that Mugabe is immune to change,' Makuvise
added.

One must support the EU
for moral reasons (not!)

freemarket news

Thursday, April 19, 2007

Let us not forget that one reason of the fifty listed by the Independent last month for liking and supporting the European
Union was its ability to unite and put pressure on bloodthirsty thugs like
Robert Mugabe. Well, if not exactly put pressure, at least prevent them and
their best friends and relations from visiting European countries.

As we have seen, this does not always work out, what with people not giving their full
names when asking for visas and what not. The question of Mugabe himself coming
to Europe has come up again.

A report
by Africast says that the Portuguese Foreign Minister, Luis Amado, is muttering
that the EU is determined that there will be an EU-Africa Summit in Lisbon in
December and if that means asking Mugabe, so be it. He will be asked, given visa
and welcomed, undoubtedly with all pomp and circumstance.

The EU, according to this, wants to carry on
bilaterally with Zimbabwe in order to exert pressure (cant see why they should
bother as they have been so totally unsuccessful) but, as it has been made clear
by Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, the South African Foreign Minister, that there can be
no summit without Zimbabwes participation, the EU will have to swallow its
objections.

Incidentally, recent rumours in various publications
that the South African government was about to put some pressure on Mugabe or
try to replace him by someone else, have clearly not corresponded to anything
resembling reality.

The report is quite helpful in explaining the
difference between bilateral and multilateral negotiations:

This issue in some ways illuminates two
contrasting approaches to analyzing Africas problems: the one identifies
internal causes as paramount; the other, external causes.

The EU prefers, as a matter almost of principle,
multilateral approaches, though, to be fair, those could stress internal causes
a bit more with all African countries, especially Zimbabwe. Incidentally,
according to a report
in the Daily Telegraph, Robert Mugabe has proclaimed joyfully that he has
managed to beat off another attempt by Tony Blair to turn Zimbabwe back into a
British colony. The reaction of his audience (after the tumultuous applause died
down) is not recorded.

Why is it so important to hold this summit, apart
from the EUs need to show that it does have a common foreign policy towards
other parts of the world?

One of the main strategic concerns that is
now motivating the EU towards holding this summit is the flood of illegal
African migrants to Europe in the last few years and the eruption of rioting
among African immigrant communities already in Europe.

Amado said the EU and AU were already working on a
joint strategy to be ratified at the summit that would include a tripartite
approach to the migration problem.

This would be: increased security to address illegal
immigration; better integration of legal migrants; and more and better
development aid in Africa (to reduce the push factor,
presumably).

This does not sound very promising to me. Given the
security situation across most of Africa the first one seems all but impossible,
unless a huge security fence is built round the European Union, including its
sea-shores. It would dwarf the Israeli security fence, so much disliked by the
transnational great and the good.

Better integration of legal migrants has precious
little to do with the African Union and not a whole lot with the European Union.
Each member state has to deal with that separately, not least by working on
definitions of national identity, something the EU actually dislikes and tries
to undermine.

There seems to be no suggestion that trade, fishing
and agricultural policies might be changed in order to reduce the push factor.
So, we are left with more development aid money that goes to kleptocratic
African tyrants, who then continue the wrecking of their countries, thus forcing
more people to flee.

It is hardly worth undermining ones moral standing
over Robert Mugabe over this.

Hundreds descend on Beitbridge border for COSATU demo

By Tererai
Karimakwenda19 April, 2007

Hundreds of members from the Congress of
South African Trade Unions (COSATU) gathered at the Beitbridge border post
on Thursday to demonstrate in solidarity with the workers in Zimbabwe.
COSATU acting spokesperson Patrick Craven said this was the continuation of
a campaign which was launched on April 3rd and 4th this year, during the
mass action stay-away organised by the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions
(ZCTU). He said hundreds of Zimbabweans living in South Africa had also
turned out for the event and he hoped it would encourage many more to take
part.

Explaining further Craven said: "It is one of the founding
principles of COSATU that we must act in solidarity with workers under
attack." The powerful labour group has also organised protests at the border
of Swaziland in solidarity with workers in that country who are under
siege.

In Zimbabwe, officials from the ZCTU including President Lovemore
Matombo and Secretary General Wellington Chibhebhe, have been arrested and
tortured on several occasions as part of a government campaign to replace
them with a group more sympathetic to the ruling party. But the umbrella
labour union said they refuse to betray the needs of the workers and will
continue to fight.

The majority of workers in Zimbabwe are earning
wages below the poverty datum line. When they express their frustration by
demonstrating, as is allowed by the constitution, they are beaten severely
and arrested.

Arrested youth leaders dumped in bush near Marondera

By Lance Guma19
April 2007

The leaders of a newly formed youth movement who were arrested
on Wednesday, were dumped in the bush near Marondera by arresting police
officers. 5 leaders from the Zimbabwe Youth Movement were bundled into a
police truck after riot police violently broke up their rally at Huruyadzo
shopping centre in Chitungwiza. The youths say they were trying to
commemorate a betrayed revolution, which has seen the ideals of the
liberation war being forsaken by the Zanu PF regime. Collen Chibango the
president of the group told Newsreel how their national organising secretary
Hentchel Mavuma was severely beaten up during the violent disruption of
their Independence Day rally.

Mavuma, a former footballer who
underwent an unsuccessful knee operation a few years ago, was clobbered by
baton sticks on exactly the same knee. He is said to be requiring urgent
medical attention. The entire top leadership was arrested including
Chibango, Vice president Sinduza Ndlovu, Information Secretary Garikai
Kajawu, National Organising Secretary Hentchel Mavuma and Wellington
Mahohoma the treasurer. Other reports say Sendisa Sandura a member of the
group was also arrested. By the end of the day the police had arrested over
20 other youths in follow up operations, but they were released on the same
day.

Chibango said they were taken to what looked like Makoni police
station and locked up in a back room for about 3 hours. They were then put
into a Landrover Santana vehicle with civilian number plates and driven
along the Chitungwiza-Marondera road. He says after a 40-minute drive the
police turned into a dirt road by the side and stopped the vehicle. At this
point the youths were interrogated about their organisation and who was
funding them. The police also asked if they had any links to the opposition,
the Save Zimbabwe Campaign or the Zimbabwe National Students Union. It was
only after an hour of interrogation and threats that they were dumped in the
bush around 4am in the morning and left to walk back to
Chitungwiza.

The youth movement issued a defiant message saying they will
not be cowed by the harassment and instead will be organising an 'all youth'
convention in which a strong leadership will emerge that will complete the
'betrayed Chimurenga revolution.'

Electoral reforms designed to favour ZANU-PF

By Tererai
Karimakwenda19 April, 2007

Electoral reforms announced in the state
media on Thursday have been strongly criticised due to government's failure
to consult other stakeholders and for tilting the playing field to favour
the ruling party.The state's Herald newspaper reported that the government
has almost completed the alteration of boundaries for Harare Metropolitan
Province, in preparation for the joint elections due in 2008. The Minister
of Local government Ignatius Chombo said the new boundaries would be
gazetted soon and a similar exercise would be undertaken in Bulawayo
Metropolitan Province and other cities and rural areas. The changes seek to
increase the size of the electoral constituencies in Harare and Bulawayo, to
include rural areas nearby.

Dr Reginald Matchaba Hove, director of
the Zimbabwe Election Support Network (ZESN), said it is their position that
any changes to electoral legislation should be done in full consultation
with all stakeholders. This includes opposition political parties and also
civil society. He added: "What government has done here goes contrary to
what was agreed to in Dar-es-Salaam at the SADC summit. The idea was for
President Mbeki to level the playing field before conducting elections. And
if already one party is setting the agenda and altering the odds then this
raises suspicion." Matchaba Hove stressed that President Mbeki be advised of
these changes and that he should strongly move to block them.

The
electoral changes announced Thursday were approved at a cabinet meeting on
Tuesday. This was a day after Mugabe's cabinet approved the harmonisation of
presidential and parliamentary elections in 2008. But no other stakeholders
were consulted in the process. Critics believe Robert Mugabe plans to
scuttle any plans Mbeki may have. The South African president was recently
appointed as the key mediator on Zimbabwe by regional heads of state at an
extra ordinary summit in Tanzania. His task is to facilitate dialogue
between the political parties, to lead to free and fair elections in
2008.

According to the Herald, Harare Metropolitan Province would be
expanded by incorporating some parts of Mashonaland West, Mashonaland East
and Mashonaland Central provinces. This means Harare's current 45 wards will
be increased to include more rural wards.In Bulawayo, the change would
be to incorporate some of the commercial farms where resettled farmers live.
Large wards in rural areas would be subdivided to create more rural
wards.

Matchaba Hove explained why suspicion over these changes is
justified. He said: "If we look at the March 31st 2005 parliamentary
elections, ZANU-PF won only one seat in Harare and that was Harare South
which was a newly created constituency which predominantly consisted of
rural areas, especially commercial farms that had been
resettled."

One media report from South Africa quotes a government
official there who said President Mbeki would make sure SADC regulations on
elections were adhered to in Zimbabwe. But Mbeki has so far made no attempt
to even criticise the current government sponsored campaign of violence
against the opposition, or urged Robert Mugabe to put an end to
it.

'I can only see civil war'

Northern Echo, UK

ZIMBABWE is 5,000 miles
away. When the media brings us images of its police openly assaulting people
on its streets, it can seem a lot further. But walk through its towns and
cities, and this southern African nation appears a very British place.
Buildings, street names and even mannerisms are strangely familiar - like a
scene from a nostalgic movie. Stay within the commercial centre of Harare,
the high-rise capital home to 1.6 million, and you could be in any city in
the world.

But this is a fragile facade.

"What should I do about
Mugabe?," I finally found the courage to ask a new friend over
dinner.

It was early July 2006 and I was in Mutare,
a provincial city in eastern Zimbabwe. We had been enjoying drinks, good
food and good company. But the atmosphere changed. I knew it would, but I
still had to ask.

My new friend, a large, shaven-headed black Zimbabwean,
sighed and looked to the floor. "You buy a gun, and I'll shoot
him."

When I entered Zimbabwe, on the last day of June 2006, I had spent
the previous six months working as a missionary volunteer in neighbouring
Zambia. Perhaps I had become too cocksure - thought I had learned everything
I needed to know about Africa. If so, my stay in Zimbabwe was to shake me
from this belief.

After nine days, I could not understand how
Zimbabweans survived from one day to the next.

Robert Mugabe became
Prime Minister of Zimbabwe on April 18, 1980. His election, following the
white minority rule of Ian Smith, was welcomed by many in the West who saw
him as a moderate liberal - part of a new generation of democratic African
leaders. Twenty-seven years later, inflation stands at 2,200 per cent,
unemployment at 80 per cent and Mugabe, now President, has been accused of
widespread human rights abuses.

Last month, two people were killed when
police broke up a prayer vigil. Morgan Tsvangirai, leader of the opposition
Movement for Democratic Change, was arrested and badly beaten.

I
travelled to Zimbabwe to visit students I had been teaching at a Zambian
Christian adult education college. The great pity of Zimbabwe is it could be
a success story. It has huge expanses of good farmland and millions of
people ready to work and learn - the tragedy is there is no one to lead and
teach them.

Most white farmers were removed under a disastrous land
reform programme, replaced by Government stooges with no knowledge of
agriculture. Zimbabwe used to feed the whole of southern Africa. Now it
depends on food aid to feed itself. It went from bread basket to basket
case. It also used to be a manufacturing nation - rivalling South Africa in
industrial output. Now, anyone who can afford electronic items imports
them.

I travelled to Mutare on an ageing bus, taking in everything I
could of the countryside through its large, grimy windows. I wrote in my
journal: Zimbabwe seems a very dark place - a place living in fear, where
the electricity is intermittent and people huddle in remote farms, hoping
Mugabe will never come knocking.

But it is also a beautiful place.
There are green rolling hills for miles and miles, nourished by rain many
African nations can only wish for - all of which only adds to the illusion
of being back in Britain.

But the first reminder that I was an outsider
came before I had even entered the country. At the northern Lake Kariba
border crossing, to be granted a visa I had to promise I would leave the
country within ten days, and not sell my laptop or digital camera. I was
glad UK passports do not carry the holder's occupation. Mugabe does not
think highly of British journalists. He banned the BBC from the country
entirely.

The border crossing also brought my first contact with
Zimbabwean dollars. Zim dollars, as they are known, are the most obvious
example of the bizarre double life the country leads. The official exchange
rate - that offered at the border checkpoint - was 100,000 Zim dollars to
one US dollar. That in itself is a fairly staggering statistic. I wrote at
the time of a 'confusing string of zeros'. But no one uses that rate.
Everyone wants foreign currency and, on the street, a US dollar brought five
times as much.

With the largest Zimbabwean note at the time being the
100,000, this brought practical difficulties. For one US dollar, I was given
a stack of paper I struggled to fit into my bag. Zimbabwe is not a good
place for wallet-makers.

A man I met in Mutare market told me: "My
bag is heavier with money when I go to market than when I return with my
shopping." Another said the rate of inflation was so high that a shop
assistant's first job each morning was to add another nought to every price
tag. A wage agreed at the start of the month was worthless by the time it
was paid at the end. If you forgot to buy a bar of soap in town on Monday,
by Friday it would cost you twice as much.

In a hectic supermarket, a bag
of apples cost me $1.9m Zim dollars.

Another problem is fuel. Most of
Zimbabwe's petrol is imported, meaning it comes through the
government-controlled border points. It is then distributed to government
staff and supporters.

"The government has the fuel, the food and the
jobs," a friend told me. "If you are starving and the President offers you a
bag of food to vote for him, you will vote for him."

Regional leaders pulled up for "non-response" to Operation
Murambatsvina

JOHANNESBURG, 19 April 2007 (IRIN) - The United Nations (UN)
Special Rapporteur on Adequate Housing, Miloon Kothari, has described the
"non-response" by the African Union (AU) and southern Africa to the
"oppressive" Zimbabwean government as "shocking" and "unhelpful".

He
was critical of regional leaders' reaction to the Zimbabwean government's
forced evictions during Operation Murambatsvina (Clean out Filth) in 2005,
which left more than 700,000 people homeless or without livelihoods. "The
recent clampdown on the opposition, the lack of transparency, has made it
difficult for us to track down those affected by the operation," he
added.

The rapporteur said the government's promises to provide the
deserving displaced with decent and affordable accommodation in subsequent
campaign, Operation Garikai/Hlalani Kuhle (Live Well), had been a
"failure".

Soon after the sudden eviction campaign in 2005, he and
several other international and regional human rights experts had warned
that Zimbabwe was "very, very close to a complete collapse of the society",
but the region had chosen to ignore the "early warning".

His efforts,
as well as those of other agencies, to hold Zimbabwe's government
accountable for the consequences of the campaign since 2005 had been caught
up in a flurry of diplomatic manoeuvrings, led by the AU and South Africa,
who insisted on pursuing "quiet diplomacy".

Zimbabwe not
alone

There were other countries in the region, and elsewhere in the
world, with the same tendencies as Zimbabwe, which were "cutting across a
human rights approach and not to give preference to the needs of the most
vulnerable; reluctant to pursue housing policies which were inclusive and
underlined the need for mixed neighbourhoods".

Kothari is in South
Africa to look at access to and affordability of adequate housing, land and
civic services, homelessness, evictions, security of tenure, women and
housing, non-discrimination, and the rights of indigenous people.

He
said even "progressive" countries like South Africa were evicting the poor
from the inner cities in their attempt to "create world-class cities".
According to the Centre for Housing Rights and Evictions, a Geneva-based
nongovernmental organisation, up to 26,000 squatters living in inner
Johannesburg, South Africa, were suffering widespread human rights
violations as a result of the city's redevelopment plan.

"Countries
are adopting a neoliberal approach, be it privatisation of essential
services, such as water, with the installation of prepaid water meters,
which creates other problems. Even in countries with strong human rights
commitment, such as South Africa, there is a big gap between the recognition
and the detailing of the recognition," Kothari commented.

"There is often
contradiction between economic policies which necessitate eviction, which
leads to further segregation along economic lines, as happened under
Operation Murambatsvina, and even the recent evictions in Luanda (Angola's
capital)," he added.

According to the rapporteur, thousands of poor
people in Luanda have been forcibly removed to make way for new
developments. Last year 600 people were removed from poor areas on the
outskirts of Luanda, near the official residence of President Jose Eduardo
dos Santos, to make room for the expansion of a government-sponsored housing
project, ironically called 'Nova Vida' or New Life.

"Providing
adequate housing is a huge challenge, and Luanda is an extreme example. It
was originally built to accommodate 400 or 500 people but it is home to four
to five million people, and 90 percent of them live in slums," he
added.

Countries often cited the market as a stumbling block to providing
affordable adequate housing to the poor, said Kothari, because governments
were reluctant to intervene for fear of destabilising the economy. The
existing housing finance system in most countries did not meet the needs of
the bottom 20 percent of the global population, and was geared to the
lower-middle and middle classes.

Zimbabwean Delegates Reject Proposed Mission

The Herald
(Harare)

April 19, 2007Posted to the web April 19,
2007

Michael PaderaNairobi

ZIMBABWEAN delegates attending the
21st Session of the Governing Council of the United Nations Human
Settlements Programme (commonly known by the acronym UN-Habitat) here, have
shot down a proposal to send a mission to Zimbabwe to talk to social groups
involved in housing.

The delegation said money earmarked for such trips
should instead be invested in proper housing delivery.

UN-Habitat
is mandated to promote socially and environmentally sustainable towns and
cities with the goal of providing shelter for all

Reacting to a
presentation on the proposed visit to Harare by Mr Cesare Otolini, the
co-ordinator of the International Alliance of Inhabitants, Bindura mayor
Advocate Martin Dinha said it would be in the best interest of Zimbabweans
if the group sent a mission to build houses.

Mr Otolini had indicated
that the group would come to Zimbabwe to try and bring the Government, local
authorities and social groups together with a view to agreeing on the
modalities of availing accommodation to people displaced by Operation
Murambatsvina.

But Advocate Dinha instead accused UN-Habitat and Mr
Otolini of "celebrating poverty", saying this was evident in the existence
of slum settlements like Kibera in Kenya, which, if removed, would leave the
agency without work. "Why another mission to Zimbabwe to support social
movements? Why not send a mission to build houses? You people celebrate
poverty," said Advocate Dinha.

Zimbabwe Local Government Association
president Cde Jerry Gotora echoed Advocate Dinha's sentiments but urged the
proposed mission to consult the right people if it succeeds to visit
Zimbabwe.

UN-Habitat under secretary general Mrs Anna Tibaijuka said
Zimbabwe was far ahead of even some developed countries in terms of the
management of slum settlements.

She said only 3,4 percent of the
country's population was living in slums while the figure in some developed
countries was 5 percent.

Mrs Tibaijuka said some people affected under
Operation Murambatsvina were, in fact, victims of a skewed colonial system
that outlawed blacks from urban centres.

With independence people
began to settle in urban centres leading to an unplanned boom.

She
said some of the victims had come to Zimbabwe as migrant labourers to work
on white commercial farms who flocked to cities following the land reform
programme and were then caught up under Operation Murambatsvina.

Making
references to Kibera, she said Africa should be ashamed to have people
living in slums.

Mrs Tibaijuka said for the first time in the history of
Kibera, the Kenyan government had put a budget for slum
upgrading.

Responding to concerns by the Zimbabwean delegation, she
claimed her recommendations after her mission to Zimbabwe following
Operation Murambatsvina had stood the test of time. She said the
recommendations were also meant to garner international solidarity on the
situation in the country.

Briton in Harare jail fears torture in Eq. Guinea

Reuters

Thu Apr 19,
2007 7:22PM BST

HARARE (Reuters) - A Briton accused of plotting a coup in
Equatorial Guinea told a court convened at Zimbabwe's top security prison on
Thursday that he would be tortured if extradited to face trial in that
country, his lawyer said.

Former special forces officer Simon Mann,
convicted by a Zimbabwean court in September 2004, is fighting a bid by
Equatorial Guinea to have him extradited to Malabo to face charges of
plotting to assassinate President Teodoro Obiang Nguema
Mbasogo.

Mann's lawyer said the Briton told a magistrate's court
specially convened at Chikurubi Maximum Security Prison on the outskirts of
Harare that he would not get a fair trial and would be tortured if sent to
Equatorial Guinea.

"He denied that he was going to Equatorial
Guinea, he denied that he had anything to do with what was happening there
and he told the court that he would not receive a fair trial," lawyer
Jonathan Samkange told Reuters."He also told the magistrate that he would be
subjected to torture (if extradited) and that the charges he is facing are
of a political nature and according to Zimbabwe's laws he cannot be
extradited," Samkange said.

The court case was moved from Harare
magistrate's court to Chikurubi, where Mann is imprisoned, after the state
said he was a "high security risk" and could not be brought to
court.

Samkange said Mann had also told the magistrate he was too sick to
be extradited. Last week a doctor examined Mann, and Samkange said he needed
a hernia operation.

Equatorial Guuinea's attorney general has said
there is enough evidence to convict Mann and he would get a fair
trial.

Mann was accused of being the ringleader of the coup plot and is
serving a four-year sentence in Zimbabwe for trying to buy weapons without a
licence. He is due for early release for good behaviour on May
11.

Sixty-six defendants, arrested when their plane landed in Harare,
served less than one year in jail after pleading guilty to charges of
violating Zimbabwe's civil aviation and immigration laws.

Eleven
others, including a number of foreigners, are serving sentences ranging from
13 to 34 years in an Equatorial Guinea jail in connection with the coup
plot.

Former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's son Mark, accused of
having helped fund the foiled coup, pleaded guilty to taking part but cut a
deal with prosecutors in South Africa, where he lived, to avoid
jail.

Remark at the Young Global Leaders Policy
Roundtable

US Department of State

Secretary Condoleezza RiceEast AuditoriumWashington,
DCApril 19, 2007

(9:45 a.m.
EST)

Excerpt...

QUESTION: Thank you very much. I must start by
saying that I'm from Zimbabwe. Adam Mutambara (ph). I'm one of the
opposition leaders. I want to start by expressing our gratitude to the
United States Government for supporting us, in particular last month when we
were brutalized, tortured and arrested. But my emphasis today is to say we
need more than democracy in Africa. In other words, democratic existence is
a necessary but not sufficient condition for progress. We want Zimbabwe, for
example, to be a peaceful, democratic and prosperous nation. What we want in
Africa is African countries becoming knowledge economy driven, technology
driven, globally competitive economies.

What policies are we putting
in place to promote technology transfer into Africa, to promote free and
fair trade between Africa and the U.S., to promote value-added manufacturing
in Africa? When we are successful, Secretary, we would want Zimbabwe to be
exporting IT products, technology products to the U.S. In other words, we
are saying where are we committing a little bit of economic suicide on the
part of the U.S. because we want to be competing against you and also being
your equals in the long run.

SECRETARY RICE: That's good. Yes.
Yes.

QUESTION: Thank you very much.

SECRETARY RICE: Thank you very
much. That's great. (Applause.) Well, first of all, thank you for your
courage as a member of the opposition in Zimbabwe. Zimbabwe is a story that
I think the world should be more focused on. Particularly the countries of
the region need to be more focused on what is going on in Zimbabwe. The
people of Zimbabwe I think did not fight for independence only to find
themselves in a position of repression. And so you will have our support and
we have spoken out.

I'd love to have Zimbabwe as a competitor
internationally. I think that the United States has always had a view that
free trade is not a zero-sum game, that in fact you can grow all economies
through free trade. And it's why the United States and this President, but
really American presidents for decades now have been strong proponents of
free trade. In Africa in particular, we have had programs that recognize
that democracy is a necessary condition, but not sufficient to be able to
deliver for people. And so we've begun to talk more and more about democracy
and development.

We have through the African Growth and Opportunity Act
made it possible for a product to come into the United States. And I have
seen in some cases when I visited Africa how that's affected and helped
promote small business. We have been very involved in education in Africa
which after all with an educated population you can compete better in the
international economy. The United States has almost quadrupled official
development assistance to Africa over the term of this presidency because we
believe that trade, aid and foreign direct investment have to go together to
improve people's lives.

Finally, with the Millennium Challenge Account,
which I dearly hope one day, if governance can be improved, that Zimbabwe
would be a possible candidate for that kind of program, we have been
rewarding governments that are involved in good governance, that are
fighting corruption, that are investing in their people with really rather
large development compacts that are -- you might be interested as members of
-- some of you as members of civil society -- that are actually developed
between the United States, the government and civil society as to how to
help to alleviate poverty.

So I think in Africa, we've been working very
hard to try to make the link between development and democracy because
you're right, democracies perhaps even more than non-democratic forms of
government have to be able to deliver for their people because when people
cast their vote, they expect that the government is going to be able to
deliver for them. And so this link between democracy and development is very
important.

SA elite stalling change in Zim: Moeletsi Mbeki

SABC

April 19,
2007, 17:00

Moeletsi Mbeki, the deputy chairperson of the South African
Institute for International Affairs, says he believes the South African
government is not taking action on Zimbabwe because the crisis there does
not directly impact on the political elite.

Moeletsi was speaking in
Pretoria at an African Dialogue lecture titled The Crisis in Zimbabwe. Mbeki
says the driving interest of our own dominant elites is not affected by what
is going on in Zimbabwe.

He says government's quiet diplomacy is a "do
nothing scenario" which impacts on the poor. He says the only element of
South African society that is affected by the plight and the near collapse
of the Zimbabwean economy are the poor in South Africa, who are then forced
to compete with the poor from Zimbabwe for jobs, housing and
services.

Pressure from western countriesMbeki, however, says the
South Africa government is feeling pressure from some western countries that
are sensitive about human rights abuses in Zimbabwe. These western powers,
he says, had been party to the struggle against the white minority rule in
South Africa.

Mbeki says the South African government is also feeling
pressure from its own people as the great majority of South Africans have
learnt about dictatorship from the example of the National Party, which
ruled from 1948. He says South Africans have seen the consequences of
dictatorship in independent countries, and want something to be done in
Zimbabwe.

Meanwhile, Claire Doube, the Civil Society Watch Programme
manager, says civil society has a role to play in convincing their
governments to stand up for human rights and democracy. She says South
Africa holds the key in unlocking the crisis, and therefore it is fitting
that President Thabo Mbeki has been mandated to facilitate the dialogue
between government and opposition in Zimbabwe.

Zim: Boom, Doom, Gloom, Zoom?

Fin24

19/04/2007 09:14

IN THE
"Money Matters" column in the Finweek magazine of April 5 by Vic de Klerk
(aka Trader Vic), the feasibility of a contrarian speculation on Zimbabwe
was raised, but not answered.I hope in this column to give the informed
outsider an overview that will serve to filter a decision to further
investigate - or not.

There are currently 82 listed counters and the
stock exchange was originally founded in the 1890s, so it's old and
established.

Some have an element of foreign ownership by large
multi-nationals, e.g. Circle Cement by Lafarge, Delta by SAB and Barclays
Zim by Barclays plc.

The only places for investors (private and
institutional) to hide from the ravages of hyper inflation are the property
and stock markets, both of which have been stable in real terms over the
past seven years.

Daily trades currently average about US$0.8m. That is
small by SA standards, but respectable by African standards, and in any case
both bombed out shares and markets have a tendency to be
illiquid.

Savage deflation

There is something very important to
remember about hyper inflating economies. In effect, in real terms, they
inflict a savage deflation on their populace.

Here are a few examples
of the joys inflicted by the economically illiterate octogenarian child of
Mao:

GDP is down by over 50% since 1999. Inflation in February was
officially at 1 739% and just released figures for March suggest over 6
000%.

Unemployment of 70% (excluding the informal sector) is
often quoted. There is a large civil service, arbitrary price controls on
certain products and full exchange control.

Zimbabwe is cheap for
good reason. In the face of problems, the government's answer has been to
throw money straight off the printing press at them. This is unsustainable,
not least because there has been no dollarisation, nor has there been
indexation.

Political will

Both of these were crucial to
perpetuating hyperinflation in Latin America in the 1980s. Up to now, the
private sector has been amazingly resilient and adaptable, but the public
sector has been the opposite and is crumbling - hence public sector strikes
and an unhappy security forces.

The ministry of finance and the Reserve
Bank have admitted the cause of the problem and have some idea how to mend
the economy. The Governor has even suggested that the country only needs the
political will to take the necessary pain. But one year before an election,
this may not happen.

If it doesn't, the problem will get worse. With
hyperinflation, time is not a luxury any politician can afford. The pressure
is on and the world's media is watching. However, we would like to caution
that we are dealing with a smart political strategist who has "Houdini"
characteristics. Change is inevitable, only the timing is unclear.

So
how do recovery prospects look?

Like SA, it has a broad industrial base
due to sanctions driving self reliance in the 1970s. Zimbabwe is rich in
mineral resources, with some of the largest platinum deposits in the world,
substantial reserves of coal and gas, gold, chrome and diamonds (potential
investments into the mining sector could easily top US$1.5bn), but it would
help if Bob went.

Scope for quick recovery

Agricultural prospects
would be assessed from a low base but infrastructure (dams etc) is in place.
Growing conditions for sugar and tobacco are excellent. The financial sector
is well developed with stock exchange, banks, building societies, asset
managers, pension and insurance funds in place. The work force is well
educated.

The large Diaspora may well prove a source of redevelopment
funds (may number as high as 3m people). Currently there is scope to recover
quickly, but the longer the delay in squandering the opportunity, the more
permanent the damage will be.

How would the mechanics look? The
official exchange rate in Zimbabwe is Z$250 to US$1, the unofficial about
Z$19000 to US$1. Foreign investors would never contemplate an investment
using Z$250, nor would they invest illegally through the black market. They
can however legally buy Old Mutual shares on the LSE or JSE and sell on the
ZSE for Zim$.

This gives rise to an "implied exchange rate" (OMIR) that
at the end of March stood at Z$21000 to US$1. Since this is a
market-determined rate at which foreign assets can enter and leave the
country, it is the rate foreigners use to value Zimbabwean
assets.

However, since this rate of exchange is determined using
equities, the derived exchange rate will tend to be more volatile than
normal exchange rates. Company Law allows share buybacks in Zimbabwe. On the
negative side, hyperinflation can distort economic profits resulting in
excessive tax. Holding cash is suicide.

Buying 'the world'

The
universe of stocks valued at just over US$1bn buys a Lafarge cement plant, a
monopoly brewer and coke bottler, two property companies, Barclays Bank
Zimbabwe, a construction company, a building materials company, Rio Tinto
Zimbabwe, the largest cellphone operator, BAT Zimbabwe, a monopoly paper and
pulp producer, a sugar refiner, a hotel group, two supermarket chains, the
world's largest crocodile skin producer, the monopoly dairy products group,
two tea estates and a leading regional seed producer.

Barclays Bank
Botswana is valued at US$1bn and Barclays Kenya US$1.2bn. To pay <$50m
for Barclays Zimbabwe would appear a bargain.

In monetary terms, the
economy at OMIR rates is worth about US$3bn, 30% the size of neighbouring
Zambia which has less infrastructure and a less diversified
economy.

On a turnaround, the currency (on an OMIR basis) would firm
overnight, so the key is to hold assets in anticipation of a change that
hopefully will otherwise hold their value in real terms. The upside is
considerable - but so too the volatility during the waiting period. Here are
just a few possibilities:

SAB's Delta is highly cash generative and
virtually as dominant in its home market as its parent, as long as current
power cuts don't too badly destroy productivity.

The irrigated barley
crop is highly dependent on electricity. The group secured an order to
supply 16m beer bottles worth US$2.8m to SABMiller, South Africa, also malt
exports to the DRC worth US$1m was also secured.

CFI is a food producer
from which Kevin James of the soon to be listed (on the JSE) Country Bird
hails. Turnover typically outpaces average inflation, especially in the
poultry division which contributes greater than 50% to turnover. Stock feed
constraints are a risk.

War chest of free cash

Main worry is the
tight cash conversion cycle dealt with by borrowing.

Innscor (recall that
Nando's when listed was an investor) had franchise stores across Africa, and
a war chest of free cash flow. It also is a croc farmer and expects to be
doing 100 000 skins by 2010.

Dawn Properties holds the creme de la creme
of hotel properties. Earnings power is very limited but capital uplift would
be immense should international donor support resume and a turnaround occur
in the tourism sector.

Nicoz Diamond is a dominant player in the
short-term insurance market, with over 20% market share. Negative real
premium growth is destroying viability of smaller players.

The claims
ratio is likely to deteriorate with the worsening economic
environment.

Afdis - African distillers has dominant market share in
its segment. It is owned and controlled by Distillers (SA). Dairibord has a
significant share of its market. Hunyani, the paper producer, has a high
export content (about 33% of volumes F2006). Circle Cement has a market
capitalisation of only US$30m, despite annual capacity of 450000 tons.
Ludicrous.

Investable capital

In his article, Vic expressed the
wish to see a fund formed to offer exposure. I can say with confidence that
there are a number available in Europe, which obviously has a far deeper
pool of investable capital.

A South African investor can if he/she really
wants to, absolutely insist that their adviser sources a fund to make such
an investment, but must bear in mind that it will not be regulated of
supervised by the South African FSB.

Any prospective investor into
Zimbabwe should ensure that they receive adequate expert guidance. While I
have extensively drawn upon the work of my colleagues (at Imara Edwards and
Imara Asset management) in Zimbabwe, this column absolutely must not be
considered as advice.

Mugabe reiterates threat to seize
mines

Africa-interactive

Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe Wednesday reiterated his
government's controversial plans to claim shareholding in privately-owned
foreign mining companies operating in the country, as part of a new wave of
economic empowerment for the majority blacks.

In the last seven
years, his government has seized thousands of prime farms from white owners
and re-distributed them to landless peasants to economically empower
them.The seizures attracted international rebuke, including sanctions from
Western countries, but Mugabe ignored the censure and went ahead.He has
now trained his eyes on foreign-owned mining companies operating in
Zimbabwe, from which his government plans to claim, again to economically
empower blacks.

Under the draft plans, the government will take
either controlling 51 percent stakes or 49 percent shareholding in the mines
on agreement with each company.Part of the shareholding would be paid
for, but the bulk would be taken over for free just as the farms."We are
tired of being illegal miners," Mugabe said, referring to mostly prohibited
small-scale mining by blacks.He said a bill would soon be presented in
parliament to enable the government to go ahead with the mine
seizures.The planned seizures have drawn criticism, and led to most
international investors to stay off Zimbabwe until government plans become
clear. 19 April 2007 - PANA

South Africa's Mbeki Lays Goundwork for Stabilizing
Zimbabwe

VOA

By Delia RobertsonJohannesburg19 April
2007

Last month, Southern African leaders appointed South
African President Thabo Mbeki their mediator to facilitate talks between
Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe and opposition groups in his country.
The goal is to end the political crisis in Zimbabwe, prepare for free and
fair elections as early as next year, and lay the groundwork for an economic
recovery program. In this report from our southern Africa bureau in
Johannesburg, VOA's Delia Robertson takes a closer look at how the
facilitation might work and what its chances of success
are.

Zimbabweans wondering what President Mbeki has in mind for
negotiations in their country need look no further than South Africa
itself. The blueprint Mr. Mbeki will be working from is the one that
brought an end to apartheid in South Africa.

But Mr. Mbeki will not
be seeking to impose the same final model on Zimbabwe that South Africans
chose. Rather he will be asking them to use similar methods. This means
having talks with as wide a range of interest groups as possible, each with
an equal standing, discussing and debating, giving and taking, until
consensus is reached.

Already Mr. Mbeki has asked the two factions of the
opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) for proposals, including on
constitutional reform and on requirements for the holding of free and fair
elections. And Tomaz Augusto Salomão, the executive secretary of the
Southern Africa Development Community (SADC), has begun an audit of the
Zimbabwe economy to determine what will be needed to kick-start its
recovery.

But Chris Landsberg, director of Johannesburg's Center for
Policy Studies, says that looming large over all Mr. Mbeki's plans is
President Robert Mugabe, who he says has, on four previous occasions,
obstructed regional initiatives to end the crisis in Zimbabwe.

"But
since 2000 SADC in general - South Africa in particular tried to do
something - they have consistently offered something since 2001, they have
offered something in 2002, 2003 - we know about the significant offer in
2005 where South Africa even offered a loan package as much as $1 billion in
exchange for political concessions," he said.

Mr. Mbeki has set
himself a tight timeline. He would like an agreement between the parties
early enough to allow adequate preparations for an election next March that
will be viewed as free and fair not only by all the parties in Zimbabwe and
by Southern African leaders, but also by the international community.
Landsberg warns that Mr. Mugabe is likely to resist for as long as
possible.

"I think what we are likely to see between now and next year's
proposed election, we are going to have Mugabe dragging out the Mbeki
facilitation as much as possible," he added. "In other words, he is going
to posture, he going to play games, he is going to be too busy, he is only
going to show urgency to meet Mbeki and to formally participate at a time
when he will say it is too late to have the facilitation and to have
elections. One of the things must give. So he'll make a convincing case
for the postponement of the elections."

Landsberg argues that Mr.
Mugabe will likely want to postpone elections until 2010, the latest
possible date they could be held under the current constitution. He says
that this will enable Mr. Mugabe to delay identifying his successor,
because, he says, once this happens, Mr. Mugabe will lose whatever control
he has left within ZANU-PF, his own party.

"At some point he is going to
anoint a successor," he explained. "And, of course, he is going to go for
somebody who is likely to be seen by him as a puppet. And instead of that
power working in his favor, people will then say this is it, he is now
weakened, then they will really push him out."

But other experts, such as
Chris Maroleng of the Institute for Security Studies in Pretoria, say that
the confluence of events in Zimbabwe and the region in recent months may be
enough to propel Mr. Mugabe to fall into line on the timeline set by
southern Africa leaders for completion of the mediation.

Maroleng
argues that the octogenarian leader has never before had such poor support
within his own party. Also that he has never previously had to face a
united opposition from southern Africa leaders, as he did last month in Dar
Es Salaam.

"If he yet again scuttles such an opportunity, this would
create the impression in the region that he doesn't take his counterparts
seriously," he explained.

Following the Dar Es Salaam meeting, the
leaders issued a statement that expressed support for Mr. Mugabe and also
called on western countries such as the United States and the United Kingdom
to abandon so-called smart or targeted sanctions against Zimbabwe. Maroleng
says that it has become common knowledge that in the privacy of the meeting,
Mr. Mugabe was subjected to severe criticism from the regional grouping. He
says their call for an end to sanctions was a device to prevent Mr. Mugabe
from finding excuses to avoid or delay the mediation.

"The fact that
they are distancing themselves from a western approach to regime change is a
clear indication that the southern African development community is really
preparing the groundwork for a mediation in Zimbabwe and closing any exit
that Mugabe has taken where he has [in the past] consistently accused any
mediator as puppets of the west or neo-colonial lackeys of the west," he
said.

Like all previous initiatives, the current effort will likely
include an offer that will allow Mr Mugabe to retire gracefully without the
threat of being brought on charges before the International Criminal Court
or even before Zimbabwe's own courts for crimes against humanity.

To
satisfy Zimbabwe's opposition, Mr. Mbeki will have to find a way to ensure
that pre-election campaigning and the elections themselves are overseen by
an independent electoral commission supported by a peacekeeping body, such
as the Peace Commission which operated in South Africa in 1994. In addition,
opposition groups also want the support of southern African and western
observers.

Any agreement will also include an economic recovery program
designed to kick-start Zimbabwe's ailing economy as quickly as possible.
That will require the support of the international community, particularly
the industrialized nations, and Mr. Mbeki will be keenly aware that this
support will not be forthcoming unless the agreement meets their criteria
for free and fair elections.

Mr. Mbeki has appointed two seasoned
South African facilitators who have already held several meetings with
representatives of the two factions of Zimbabwe's Movement for Democratic
Change and with representatives of some Zimbabwean civil society
groups.

The facilitators will draw up a draft agreement, and when that is
ready in the coming weeks, Mr. Mbeki will want to present it to Mr. Mugabe.
It is at that point, that Zimbabweans and regional leaders will get their
first indication of whether or not Mr. Mugabe intends to fully cooperate
with the Southern Africa Development Community's mediator.

Mbeki must first stop the violence

The Zimbabwean

(19-04-07)Zimbabwe
mediationApril 18, 2007 Edition 1Allister Sparks

If President
Thabo Mbeki is to perform his role as Southern African Development Community
(SADC) mediator in Zimbabwe with any chance of success, then he must
intervene immediately to stop Robert Mugabe's vicious campaign of physical
assaults aimed at crushing the political opposition there.Mbeki's role
is to initiate dialogue between Mugabe's ruling Zanu-PF and the opposition
Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), leading to free and fair elections
next March.

Well, the election is less than 11 months away, which means
it should already be in the campaigning stage. Competing parties should be
registering voters, naming candidates and holding election rallies. But the
MDC can do none of that. Political meetings are banned, some 600 prominent
opposition figures, including its top leaders, have been arrested on trumped
up charges and badly beaten. At least three have died and dozens have been
seriously injured. It is an appalling situation.

Mugabe's strategy is
obvious. It is a crude attempt to cripple the opposition, to shatter its
organisational structure, brutalise its leadership and so intimidate its
followers that it will be unable to mount a coherent election challenge.
Then in the last few weeks, when foreign observer teams start arriving,
Mugabe can put on a show of openness to enable them to proclaim the election
"free and fair."

Mbeki should act now to stop this travesty. He should
tell Mugabe that unless he stops this brutal campaign right now, SADC will
have no option but to pronounce the elections as having not been free and
fair. And he should spell out the implications of that to Mugabe - that SADC
would not be able to validate his re-election or recognise his new
government. It would be an illegitimate regime.

Mbeki's defenders
often challenge those who accuse him of being craven in the face of Mubage's
human rights violations and economic devastation, asking what they expect
the president to do. "Do you want him to send in the army?" they ask,
knowing the absurdity of such a suggestion.

Or impose sanctions, which
would cause even greater misery for the suffering population while the
ruling elite would still have access to what resources remain? Or close the
border and cut off electricity supplies, which would have much the same
result? Or publicly condemn Mugabe, what Mbeki himself calls megaphone
diplomacy, which would simply make the old tyrant more stubborn and
vindictive than ever without achieving anything?

There is merit in these
rejoinders, although I believe a measured public expression of disapproval
would have undermined Mugabe's strategy, which has been remarkably
successful, of deluding his followers into believing he is waging an
honourable struggle against an iniquitous campaign by Western powers, led by
US President George Bush and UK Prime Minister Tony Blair, to punish him for
giving white farms to landless blacks - and that all of Africa is behind
him.

Simply to have exposed that lie would have gone a long way to
undermining Mugabe's political staying power.But my real point is that
there is now an active, positive, effective thing Mbeki can do, and that is
simply to give Mugabe that warning that a continuation of his campaign of
brutalising the opposition will lead to SADC declaring the election invalid.
It does not have to be uttered loudly, or even publicly. It can be done in
the context of "quiet diplomacy." It can be conveyed to Mugabe in private -
so long as Mbeki says it in a way that Mugabe understands it is
meant.

What is more, Mbeki can do this without acting in his capacity as
President of South Africa. He need not expose himself to an accusation that
he is acting on behalf of the West or of white South African business, a
retaliation that would be typical of Mugabe. Mbeki can do it on behalf of
SADC, which has mandated him to act on behalf of all 14 of the member
states.

Moreover, SADC has its own clear criteria for holding free
and fair elections, and Mugabe must be told to abide by them or face the
consequences. And he must be told now.

I believe that could stop him
in his tracks. There can be nothing Mugabe fears more than being disavowed
by his SADC colleagues. Being a cunning and resourceful man, he would
doubtless try to wriggle out of such a corner, but if the warnings kept
coming and if he knew they were seriously intended he would have to respond.
He could not risk having the election invalidated.

Not least, and
political considerations aside, such a serious warning would put an end to a
lot of gratuitous human suffering. A lot of good, honest people have already
been grievously damaged in these batterings. I know some of them. One is
William Bango with whom I worked as a colleague at the Institute for the
Advancement of Journalism in Johannesburg, where he was head of print
training for several years. Many of our leading South African journalists
will remember him as a lively, witty, talented man.

Willie is typical of
many who are trying to bring about change in their devastated country and
who are certainly not agents of some nefarious foreign power. Willie joined
Zanla, Mugabe's guerrilla army, as a youth and fought in the chimurenga, the
liberation struggle.

He was wounded and the movement sent him abroad to
further his education. He obtained a masters degree at Cardiff University's
renowned Thompson School of Journalism.

Willie left the IAJ to return
to Zimbabwe and become news editor of the Daily News. When Mugabe closed
that excellent independent paper and his military thugs blew up its presses,
Willie joined the MDC and became the spokesman for its leader, Morgan
Tsvangirai.

I visited Willie at his home the last time I was in Harare.
"I am a millionaire," he told me laconically, "but I am poor." He spelled
out some of the realities of life in a country whose currency has collapsed
to Weimar Republic levels. His wife had received a call from an insurance
company to tell her an annuity policy had matured. The payout was enough to
buy a bottle of Coca-Cola.

Willie was with Tsvangirai on that
watershed Sunday, March 11, when police arrested them on their way to a
prayer rally. He was with him when uniformed thugs arrived in a truck and
began systematically beating them up with boots and iron bars, when
Tsvangirai suffered a fractured skull and Willie himself serious internal
injuries.

The world was shocked to see pictures of the bedraggled
opposition leader with his ugly head injury. Now the photographer who took
those pictures has been murdered.

Willie was flown to South Africa
for medical treatment. He collapsed on arrival at the hospital. He underwent
emergency surgery to remove his gall bladder and repair other ruptured
internal organs. He was lucky to survive.

Willie is back home now. I
phoned him last week to ask how he was. He said he was OK, but had lost
20kg, which is a lot for a small man. I asked if he was ready now to pitch
into an election campaign.

There was a hollow laugh in reply.Sparks
is a veteran journalist and political commentator.

Govt to Comment On Zim Talks After Milestones

The South African government would comment on
developments in talks between Zimbabwe's politicians when "milestones" were
reached, government spokesperson Themba Maseko said Thursday.

In late
March, President Thabo Mbeki was mandated by the Southern African
Development Community (SADC) leaders to facilitate dialogue between the
government and opposition of its northern neighbour.

The decision
was taken at a meeting of the SADC Double Troika and an Extraordinary SADC
Summit in Dar-es-Salaam, Tanzania.

Until milestones were reached in what
are likely to be sensitive negotiations, the South African government would
not release statements on the discussions, Mr Maseko said, briefing
reporters on the sixth meeting of Cabinet this year, which took place
Wednesday.

He said Cabinet welcomed the decision by the SADC Heads of
State and Government giving President Mbeki the mandate to facilitate such a
dialogue.

"The government, opposition and people of Zimbabwe must take
advantage of the goodwill shown by the SADC Heads of State and move speedily
towards finding a lasting political solution," Mr Maseko said.

"The
critical and urgent challenge facing all Zimbabweans is to take the
necessary steps to create an environment that would be conducive for free
and fair elections during 2008."

Zimbabwe and the whole SADC region,
explained Mr Maseko, need a stable socio-economic and political climate that
would enable the region to attend to "the urgent challenges of economic
growth and development of our peoples."

Cabinet welcomed, and was
encouraged by, the confidence placed by the opposition Movement for
Democratic Change (MDC) in South Africa's ability to facilitate a negotiated
resolution to Zimbabwe's problems, Mr Maseko said.

Emphasising that
President Mbeki and Government would not be making regular utterances on the
developments, because of the sensitive nature of the negotiations, Mr Maseko
said "these discussions [between the Zimbabwe government and the opposition]
must be handled as confidentially as possible".

Discussions will
continue to be held behind closed doors and there will be no comments made
on progress in these talks "until substantial progress has been made", Mr
Maseko said.

All South Africa's efforts "must be aimed at making sure we
get all parties [in Zimbabwe] to sit around the table and talk", he said,
adding that South Africa was looking at "full negotiations".

South
Africa will also continue to talk to the two parties separately, he
said.

It could be expected that "all kinds of statements will be
made" by the protagonists in Zimbabwe during the course of talks aimed at
developing a consensus that will allow the country to move forward.

Don't point fingers, SA tells Zim
parties

Mail and Guardian

Pretoria, South Africa

19 April 2007
04:45

South Africa's Cabinet has urged Zimbabwe's government
and opposition to stop pointing fingers at each other in
public.

"We are aware, as we move closer and closer to
getting negotiations on track, chances are that both parties would be making
all kind of statements about and against each other... I see no value in
both parties, the opposition leaders and the government, continuing pointing
fingers at each other," said government spokesperson Themba
Maseko.

Briefing the media on Thursday following a Cabinet
meeting on Wednesday, Maseko said President Thabo Mbeki would encourage the
Zimbabweans to express their views and critique each other "around the
table" as part of the process for preparing for full
negotiations.

Mbeki was asked by the Southern African
Development Community to act as facilitator, a responsibility the Cabinet
welcomed.

In the meantime, Maseko said the South African
government would not make any statements on the progress of the
facilitation.

"We'll handle these matters behind closed doors
and handle them confidentially and will not divulge any details about what
is happening between our government and the various protagonists in
Zimbabwe," he said.

"There will be milestones and when
milestones are achieved there will be communications." -- Sapa

Forty years in Zimbabwe's schools

BBC

A recently retired
junior school teacher tells the BBC News website anonymously about her
career spanning four decades.

1960s: First job I am from a family
of teachers.

My father was a junior school teacher, but in the 1950s he
stopped teaching to look for better-paid work in Salisbury, which is now
Harare. He worked as a foreman at a construction company so he could pay for
all eight of us children to go to school.

We lived on my father's
farm where we were the labourers. We attended a Methodist Church school to
begin with. Afterwards I was at boarding school.

I did my teacher
training at a mission school and my first job in 1965 was right out in the
rural areas. It was a rule that you had to take a posting in the rural areas
before you could transfer to the cities.

To be honest, I have completely
forgotten my first day. I just know that I wasn't scared at all. I was free
as anything then and I was enjoying my kids.

I didn't have to be
strict, because children in the rural areas behaved much better than those
in the urban areas. They were not a problem at all. Much more
respect.

I remember that the accommodation was very poor - just simple
houses built with daga [clay] and thatched with grass. No running
water.

During that time we taught about 30 children in a class -
enrolment was very low there.

Most rural schools were run by missions
and the children didn't pay school fees. Our salaries were paid by the
government.

After a year I transferred to a larger boarding school where
I stayed until I got married and moved to a township near
Salisbury.

1970s: TownshipsWorking in the townships was easier -
bread was available to you, sugar and everything - compared to the rural
areas where you had to walk or travel by bus to a shopping centre to buy all
those things - which was a bit hard.

I taught at a government school
where about 40 to 45 pupils were enrolled in a class. Most children came to
school.

Their school fees were about nine cents per term, so 45 cents
for the whole year - which was cheap at the time because the price of living
was low generally.

I was happy teaching there; the environment was
good. The liberation struggle did not directly affect schools in
town.

We used to teach in English, although sometimes we'd mix English
and Shona as there were some who didn't understand English very
well.

All the text books were in English, even those for teaching
Shona.

1980s: IndependenceFour years after independence in 1980 I
transferred to what was called a Group A school in Harare.

Group
A schools had been only for white children; Group B schools had been for
black children.

My class was mixed and I taught white children for the
first time. They were good students except for Shona, which they tended to
lose interest in.

Group A schools had always been better funded and
equipped, and their way of teaching was different too.

For instance,
they used phonics and a lot of activities in lessons. We didn't teach
English phonetically, we used the look and say method.

Children also
received milk in break times, although unlike the high density area pupils,
they had to pay for it.

The milk scheme was stopped altogether in around
1990.

The school classification actually remained in place for about
another 10 years - with the Group A schools getting more
money.

1990s: Bigger classesClass sizes began to grow in the
1990s: I think it was because people were moving to urban areas, building
houses and so on.

At one stage, there were so many children in our
area that "hot-sitting" was tried - with morning and afternoon
sessions.

However it didn't work out as teachers found it hard sharing
classrooms and text books with their colleagues.

A teacher's salary
has always been low. But in the 1990s a teacher could get by. The 1980s were
the best when a teacher could live well and pay credits - even during those
first days we could survive as things were cheap.

2000s:
HungerBut life became really difficult on a teacher's salary from 2000.
Teachers went on strike recently and were given an increase, but many of us
only manage to pay our transport costs because our children overseas are
giving us money.

Hunger also became a very big problem with some
children from struggling families coming to school with nothing to
eat.

Uniforms, which were never very expensive, are also a problem
now.

More and more people have come to settle in the high density areas,
where the schools are very few.

Whether or not standards in education
have fallen, I am not sure. I can just measure by my class and my standard
of teaching didn't go down right up till the day I resigned.

I was
very, very particular that a child could only go into the next grade once he
or she was able to read.

In my younger days it was very competitive among
the teachers to see who could get good results.

Teachers today don't
seem very serious because you can just see them chatting to each other
during teaching time; sometimes they come in a bit late, they don't even
bother - to them it's nothing.

And if you don't have enough text books
that is lowering the standards.

Mistrust Hampers Zimbabwe
Mediation Effort

The South African president will have to work hard to
persuade Zimbabwe's government and opposition to talk to one another - and
even to him.

By Takesure Dengu in Harare (AR No. 109,
19-Apr-07)

Mutual mistrust and suspicion remain the two key obstacles to
a negotiated political settlement in Zimbabwe, say analysts. A third
challenge facing South African president Thabo Mbeki, who is leading the
latest mediation attempt by Zimbabwe's neighbours, will be persuading the
personalities who will be involved in any talks to put their egos to one
side.

Police attacks on opposition leaders and their supporters on March
11 led to an international outcry against the deteriorating human rights
situation in Zimbabwe. The United States, Britain, Australia and New Zealand
cranked up pressure on Zimbabwean president Robert Mugabe to give his
opponents breathing space to operate, and threatened more "targeted
sanctions" against the ruling egime's elite.

The traditionally
lethargic Southern African Development Community ,SADC, called an emergency
summit in the Tanzanian capital of Dar es Salaam on March 28-29 at which
they privately made Mugabe aware of their concerns about the TV images
showing a badly beaten Morgan Tsvangirai, the leader of the opposition
Movement for Democratic Change, MDC.

Although the president tried to
downplay this ticking-off when he reported back to ZANU-PF supporters at
home, and went on to secure endorsement from the party's Central Committee
as its sole candidate in next year's presidential election, South Africa's
Thabo Mbeki has said Mugabe was told that what was happening in Zimbabwe was
"not acceptable".

Mugabe's talks with the SADC were was followed by more
arrests, beatings, abductions and torture of opposition activists accused of
bombing state infrastructure and police stations.

SADC heads of state
appointed Mbeki to mediate between the MDC and the ruling ZANU-PF. Mbeki has
set up a five-member team to consider how such a negotiation process would
work.

Last week, Mbeki met the secretary-generals of the MDC's two
factions in Johannesburg. According to sources close to Mbeki, he refused to
deal with them as separate factions and instead said he wanted to address
them as a united party, and then take their common demands to the ZANU-PF
leadership.

A political analyst in Harare said the biggest problem facing
Mbeki was the abiding atmosphere of mistrust. ZANU-PF accuses the MDC of
being a front for the West, while the opposition party returns the
animosity, and also remains suspicious of the South African leader's
credentials as an impartial broker.

"The MDC has always had problems with
Thabo Mbeki since his earlier involvement in the Zimbabwean crisis," said
the analyst, who asked not to be named. "They don't trust Mbeki, in the
first place because they think he is too close to Mugabe. Secondly, they
don't trust his so-called 'quiet diplomacy', whereby Mbeki has refused to
openly criticise Mugabe's brutal rule."

By contrast, a ZANU-PF
insider told IWPR that "Mbeki is welcome to discuss our challenges with us.
We are neighbours. We help each other in times of need."

Speaking on
condition of anonymity, the party insider repeated the official line that
the MDC exists only to advance western interests.

"It is up to them to
prove they are Zimbabwean. Why do they always appeal to foreigners whenever
there is a problem at home? They must renounce their western roots and
denounce the sanctions which are hurting our people if they want to talk to
us," he said.

He was dismissive of the MDC's demand for a new
constitution, and refused to say whether ZANU-PF would consider the issue if
it were put on the agenda of the proposed talks.

"They rejected a new
constitution in 2000. Have they changed their mind now? What are they
proposing?" he asked. "It is their problem. Comrade Mugabe has said the
current constitution is sacrosanct and non-negotiable."

A foreign
diplomat based in Harare, who did not want to be named, said there was a
need for compromise on both sides. He said it was wrong to declare any issue
out of bounds in a negotiating process.

"For the sake of progress and for
the good of the country, Tsvangirai will have to accept a face-to-face
meeting with Mugabe. He can't avoid him," he said. "If it means recognising
him as head of state, he will have to. After all Mugabe, has only a few
months as president if he is defeated in next year's election."

He
said there was a chance that the South African president would be able to
persuade Mugabe to meet his nemesis Tsvangirai at some stage.

"If
Mugabe has accepted that there is a crisis in his country and wants
financial help from SADC, he cannot afford to humiliate those trying to
help," he said. " Zimbabwe is unlikely to get help from the World Bank or
the International Monetary Fund so long as there is no acceptable political
settlement."

To sum up, he said, "These are the pressures on both
leaders. They will have to subordinate their egos to the national good. It
would be unfortunate to squander this window of opportunity and allow the
situation to get worse than it already is now, or the institutions of the
state will start to collapse completely."

The MDC says it might
boycott next year's joint parliamentary and presidential elections if no
major constitutional reforms take place before then, and if draconian laws
like the Public Order and Security Act and the Access to Information and
Protection of Privacy Act have not been repealed.

The party is also
calling for fair elections under international supervision, and for the
opposition to be given access to state-run media.

Overcoming the gulf
between the MDC's demands and the Mugabe administration's refusal to budge
presents a huge challenge to the South African leader.

"Mbeki's mediation
skills will be put to the test," said the Harare-based analyst. "He cannot
afford to fail again. Nobody in the region wants this crisis to
continue."

Sino-Zimbabwe cooperation enters brand-new
stage

HARARE, April 19
(Xinhua) -- The Sino-Zimbabwe trade and economic cooperation has entered a
brand-new development stage in the wake of the Beijing Summit of the
China-Africa Cooperation Forum last year, a senior Chinese diplomat said on
Thursday.

In an exclusive interview with Xinhua, the Chinese
Ambassador to Zimbabwe Yuan Nansheng said fundamental changes have taken
place in the bilateral relations and economic cooperation between the two
countries since last year's summit.

China has now become
the second largest trade partner of Zimbabwe, after South Africa, and China
is also the biggest tobacco buyer from Zimbabwe, with the total trade volume
between the two countries reaching 275 million U.S. dollars in 2006, while a
few years ago, China was not even among the top ten trade partners of
Zimbabwe, according to the Chinese ambassador.

According to
the figures from the economic and commercial counselor's office of the
Chinese Embassy in Zimbabwe, Zimbabwe has bought more than 100,000 tons of
fertilizers and pesticides from China with a 200 million dollars buyer's
credit loan offered by the Chinese banks, and China also put in place nearly
20 million dollars to improve the telecommunications facilities in Zimbabwe
under a 300 million dollars agreement signed a few years
ago.

Also, Zimbabwe's largest bus company Zupco has newly
bought 55 luxurious buses and various motor parts from China's FAW since
last year.

Yuan said the action plan adopted at the
China-Africa Cooperation Forum last year has also boosted Chinese investment
in this southern African country.

China becomes the
investor with the fastest direct foreign investment growth in Zimbabwe,
replacing the western countries.

The Sino-Zimbabwe Cement
Company has become one of the largest cement producers in Zimbabwe with its
quality products exported to many countries in South African region, earning
Zimbabwe millions of U.S. dollars.

The construction of a
large-scale modern glass producing and processing center by Jingniu Group,
one of the renowned Chinese glass producers, is in full swing in Kadoma, an
industrial city in central Zimbabwe.

With a planned
investment of 400 million dollars and occupying an area of 100 hectares,
China Jingniu Glass Factory in Zimbabwe is expected to be completed in five
years.

To bring into reality the action plan of the
China-Africa Cooperation Forum, the Chinese government plans to build two
rural schools and an agricultural technology experimenting center in
Zimbabwe in the near future, Yuan said.

Zimbabwean
President Robert Mugabe last week commissioned 424 tractors imported from
China at more than 25 million dollars to be used by tobacco contract farmers
under agricultural concern, Farmers' World.

The consignment
also included disc harrows. These tractors were imported with a preferential
loan provided by the Chinese government last year, Yuan
said.

In January this year, the first 15-member group of the
Chinese young volunteers for Africa was sent to Zimbabwe, and they have
joined hands with their local counterparts to contribute to Zimbabwe's
economic and social development, Yuan said.

The trade and
economic cooperation between China and Zimbabwe in the new historical period
will focus on the agriculture sector and on the interests and benefits of
local ordinary people, Yuan said.

China has committed to
helping Zimbabwe to develop the agricultural production in a bid to secure
the food of local people against the sanctions by the Western countries and
the droughts, he explained.

The Chinese ambassador said he
hopes there is a greater success in the cooperation between the two
countries within five years, with the total trade expected to surge to 500
million dollars in 2008.

He said Zimbabwe will see more Chinese
assistance and investment in agriculture and mining, and the Chinese
companies will help Zimbabwe to build more projects in the country's
infrastructure field.

A New Zimbabwe:
Everywhere in my life

Comment from The Mail & Guardian (SA), 12 April

Justice Malala

It is the small
things that get you. Like, Nathaniel's wife is six months pregnant. He is a
young man who, anywhere else in the world, would be making his way up the
corporate ladder. She is somewhere in the deep dark depths of Mutare,
Zimbabwe. He is working as a gardener in the northern suburbs of
Johannesburg. He cannot go home. The last time he went home, in December
last year, it took him two months to get back into South Africa. He crossed
the Limpopo River, like so many thousands of his compatriots every day, on
foot. He was arrested and sent back home. Failure is not an option for
people like Nathaniel. If he does not get to South Africa, his wife and
child will die of hunger. So he made the perilous trip again, carrying only
a 500ml bottle of water. This time he succeeded, arriving in Johannesburg
bedraggled, gaunt and thirsty.

He lives in a room in a flat in
Hillbrow. He is regularly arrested because he has no official papers and has
to bribe the police with amounts as small as R10 to be let off into the
seething suburb. He knows one thing: he travels with at least R20 in his
pocket just in case he is stopped. He knows it is usually enough to get him
out. I have known Nathaniel for three years now. Instead of things getting
better, his problem just gets more intractable. He cannot buy fake South
African documents - an identity document and passport, primarily - because
the police ignore these anyway. They have managed to work out the accents,
he says. Without these documents he cannot get a formal job, he cannot
engage in any commerce, he cannot put his numerous talents out into the
marketplace. He quests, and yet he is condemned to a dark, underground,
desperate life. He is perpetually playing hide-and-seek with the law;
gambling with his life as he attempts to get home through game parks and a
crocodile-infested river.

He is not the only one. Nowadays,
everywhere one goes in South Africa, there are brutalised Zimbabweans
walking the streets, their lives a terrible cycle of waking up, despairing,
seeking a better life and despairing again. They are not political activists
or people who seek an insurrection in Zimbabwe. They are not political at
all. They are the type you harangue about their responsibilities to
democracy; you beg them to vote. They are ordinary human beings trying to
make their way through life. And now they are just a hungry people, shamed
into an ignominious exile. South Africa's official statistics on the number
of illegal Zimbabweans here are a joke. The more believable figure bandied
about most by NGOs is three million. I know that in every aspect of my life
there is a Zimbabwean. At work, in my job as a media consultant, I meet
brilliant young Zimbabweans. In my social life, I meet and drink and weep
with Zimbabweans. They are the lucky ones: they have jobs and can afford to
buy a beer. They have papers.

The tragedy is in the parallel worlds
of the domestic worker, the gardener and the street seller. The tragedy is
the life of the ordinary man and woman we used to call, in Marxist parlance,
"the most advanced class, the worker". They are here now, with their vaunted
consciousness, looking after our children, fixing burst car tyres in
Hillbrow. They don't have papers. These are people who go home, knowing that
they might never get back. Then they get back and wonder how they are going
to make that trip again. They have left their mothers and fathers behind.
They have children in Zimbabwe because they still believe the schooling is
better there. Until one day, when Dorothy tells me that there are only three
teachers at her child's primary school. Her daughter has been going to
school every day since January and has still not received a single lesson.
"Perhaps, next year, I can bring her to South Africa to live with me," she
says.

It is these small, human moments that cause a weakness in my
limbs, the oomph as my breath rushes out of my whole body. It is not
President Thabo Mbeki refusing to condemn torture of opposition activists or
the closure of newspapers. These make me angry. The Zimbabweans are not
coming. The Zimbabweans are here. They are no longer a vast, depressed,
heart-wrenching mass. They are men and women, once proud, reduced to
begging, to hustling, to a shifty-eyed nether world. It should not be like
this. As a young man I spent a year in Zimbabwe studying for my A-levels.
The people I met were proud of their country and their leader. They worked
hard and wanted to do well. They wanted their children to be better human
beings - materially and spiritually - than they were. Most importantly, they
believed that these dreams could and would be achieved. Being there, one
knew that this could be done. The education system was pumping out
well-spoken, well-grounded, inquisitive minds. The economy was open and the
international community believed that this remained a place to invest. The
transition from colonial rule to democracy had been handled in exemplary
fashion.

And then ... and then they are here. They are not refugees,
because we say there is no problem in Zimbabwe, and our department of home
affairs will not give them refugee status. They are not freedom fighters,
because Zimbabwe is free, right? So the Zimbabweans I knew are a nothing
people now. Every day I meet these nothing people. Sometimes I get a call:
"Perhaps you can help me ...". These are the little things and I wonder why
they do not get to so many of my fellow countrymen. How, fresh from
oppression and exile ourselves, we don't wonder why so many people can want
to leave their mothers and children to seek a better life elsewhere. Why,
when we claim to put people at the centre of our every diplomatic
initiative, do we keep quiet when evil reigns just a few hundred kilometres
to our north?

Aussies agonise over Zimbabwe

news.com.au

Robert Craddock

April
20, 2007 12:00am

AUSTRALIA is again in a bind over whether to tour
Zimbabwe with Cricket Australia declaring it will not withdraw on moral
grounds.

Australia is scheduled to play three one-day matches in the
strife-torn country in September but the tour remains in doubt.Several
players are known to have reservations about making the trip with continued
reports of widespread violence and general degeneration in the standard of
living in Zimbabwe.

Cricket Australia chief executive James Sutherland
said while the moral issues remained a concern, they were contracted to make
the tour.

Safety and security reasons -- or a directive from the Federal
Government -- are the only ways CA can cancel the tour and not be deemed
liable for a $2 million fine.

"We are not turning a blind eye to the
issues in Zimbabwe but the reality is we have major formal commitments we
are binded to," Sutherland said last night.

"It is certainly in our
minds but the difficulty we have is that we have a contract with the ICC and
all of the other full member countries, which includes Zimbabwe, to play
matches there.

"From that perspective we do not have much room to
move."

Asked whether the tour could be cancelled on moral grounds,
Sutherland said: "no . . . there is no escape clause on that
front.

"I cannot tell you what pressure we are going to come
under.

"I know there is speculation about but that is par for the course
of a Zimbabwe tour.

"At the moment we are focused on the World
Cup.

"We will at some stage look at the security issues surrounding the
World Cup."

Foreign Affairs Minister Alexander Downer said he would
help Cricket Australia explore all avenues to call off the trip but the
government insisted it would not order the team not to tour.

Launch of new work on Mugabe

Eastern Province Herald

By Deon Van
Der Merwe East London Correspondent

THE publication of a scholarly work
on Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe, and how he has taken his country to
the brink of an abyss, is set to revive the return of the lively publishing
culture which characterised the University of Fort Hare and the Lovedale
Press more than 70 years ago.

The book, Zimbabwe: With Robert Mugabe to
the Brink of the Abyss, by Prof M J Matshazi, has just been published by the
UFH's National Heritage and Cultural Studies Centre in Alice. It examines
the economic and political meltdown in South Africa's northern
neighbour.

The launch of the book, which coincided with Mugabe's latest
crackdown on opposition parties and dissidents, is expected to prove a
popular read with both academics and the lay reading public alike. It is
generally viewed as a work which will lend further impetus to secure the
return of the healthy culture of publication which characterised the UFH and
Lovedale Press during the 1930s and '40s.

The latest publication
follows closely on the heels of the centre's first successful publication
last year of the book Sport and Liberation in South Africa; Reflections and
Suggestions.

Edited by the centre's director, Dr Cornelius Thomas, the
work analyses the role played by sport in the liberation of South
Africa.

Thomas says the centre's archives, housed on the Alice campus of
the UFH, represent an internationally and nationally important
resource.

They hold the liberation archives of the PAC, the Unity
Movement, Azapo and the Black Consciousness Movement.

"We also hold
the personal papers of people such as Dr Costa Gazi and Dr Motsoko Pheku
(both PAC leaders)," Thomas said of the centre.  See Page 10. deonews@telkom.net